Siblings and Enemies

On December 16, 2010, an important moment occurred.



Ty showed us that he knew how to correctly pronounce his sister's name (sniff)...

For those of you who don't know, Ty's pronunciation of "Emily" has been "Enemy." Everyone who knows Ty knows this and gets a great laugh when they hear it. In fact, the teachers at their daycare all know about it (whether they teach/taught our children or not). I have witnessed more than one teacher get excited when she finally heard Ty say it (because she heard from someone else that it was the cutest thing). Lots of people tried to make him say it.

So back to 12/16/10...

Ty and Emily were eating breakfast, and Ty wanted to show Emily something. So he was saying "Wook, Enemy. Wook, Enemy. Wook, Enemy"...(repeat, repeat, repeat). I'm sure the moms out there have a child that will repeat themselves 5000 times if necessary until someone acknowledges them.

I started mimicking him. So I was saying "Wook, Enemy. Wook, Enemy. Wook, Enemy"...(repeat, repeat, repeat).

Ty looked me square in the eye and said, "NO, Mommy. It's Em-i-LEEEE." Just to make sure I had heard correctly, I asked him to say it again, and sure enough, "Emily" came out of his mouth.

So it's the end of an era (although when they are arguing, "Enemy" will slip out. But for the most part, he has learned how to pronounce her name, so I guess he is really growing up. At least he still calls her "his STister."

Y'all have a happy Friday and a nice weekend :-)

2010 Wrap-Up

So I know I haven't been the best blogger in 2010. But since I spent all evening re-organizing my picture files, I decided to do a quick look over our family's memories from the past year! First, I will warn you that there are over 20 pictures in this post. And second, there are more of Emily than anyone else, but this is because she had a lot of big things happen this year (and I didn't even include her dance recital or soccer season)!

We started with a milestone--Emily lost her first tooth. She pulled it by herself when she was at daycare!


A few weeks later, we celebrated her 5th birthday with a Candyland party!


We were excited with the beginning of spring and planting our garden...this is the kids "helping" Dee. Notice they aren't even in the garden ;-)


And our family's first trip to The Happiest Place on Earth:


A successful Easter egg hunt with the cousins in Allen.


Ty turned 3, and we celebrated with a Peter Pan party!


It was time for Kindergarten Roundup, and someone was sure excited...


This was a big year for Miss Emily; here she is at her Pre-K Graduation.


As soon as school got out, Dee and I headed to Fredericksburg to celebrate 7 years of marriage.


We took a trip to see our Arkansas family, and we had fun with some Silly String...


and some poppers!


Emily broke the thumb-sucking habit, so we all went to Chuck E Cheese.


At church, we prayed over our "babies" the Sunday before their first day of kindergarten.


And here is my big girl...off to school! I guess I had a big milestone this day as well since I started teaching at a new school (middle school--eek)!


And with the start of school is the start of football; we got to meet our friends/rivals on the field after the Roo victory!


Did I mention the Roos (4A) were victorious over all of the other 3 KISD high schools (all 5A)?


Another year of Kangarette kids camp!


Aunt Amy, Carter, and baby Jackson came to visit. We were excited about watching the Longhorns play (they won this day); little did we know what the season had in store for UT fans...


Halloween with Woody and Jesse!


We kept the costumes around until Thanksgiving, so we could unite the entire Toy Story gang :-)


Speaking of Thanksgiving, Grammy and Pa rented a home on Lake Palestine where we all gathered for several days. This was definitely a highlight of our year.


I took lovely Christmas card pictures for my clients, but I had the worst time trying to get my own 2 to cooperate!


I got a new hair color (I know this is kind of a silly thing to remember, but there needed to be another picture of me in this post)!


We visited Santa at the mall, and no one cried...


We spent Christmas at home this year :-)


All in all, we were very blessed in 2010.


Happy New Year to our friends and family! Maybe 2011 will bring more blogging, and maybe I will find a way to be in more pictures...maybe but probably not ;-)

No, your eyes aren't deceiving you, Trcka Talk is updated!

I can't believe it's been 6 months since my last post! It's not like I have ever been a weekly blogger, but YIKES, this has been a long time. At least I can manage a FB status a few times a week, so that everyone knows I'm still alive.

If you know me, you know there's one thing I hate, and it's being a football widow the week of Halloween. It is so tiring to have to bring the kids to all of their Halloween/fall activities by myself. And this is my busy season with portraits, too. I am happy to say that this has been the least stressful and most productive Halloween week so far since becoming a Mommy. I actually had fun with the kids at our church Funival (instead of feeling ragged, stressed, worried, and overwhelmed like usual).

Additionally, I have almost caught up on photography work, and I have only stayed up past midnight once. All of this during the week of Halloween seems impossible, but I have had a little help...A few weeks ago, everyone in our lifegroup shared what we needed prayers and support for. Honestly, I felt lame and maybe a little selfish asking for help surviving a silly thing like Halloween, but I shared my request anyway. I told them that this time of year wears me down and that I needed prayers to survive, and WOW, God has been faithful this week!

Tomorrow evening, the weekend starts, and I am not going to be bogged down with pictures or grading papers. YAY! So to celebrate, here are a few pics of my sweeties dressed up for Funival. They were Woody and Jesse this year. I know Jesse is supposed to have a red hat, but Emily wanted a pink hat. I think this may have been my last year to have any influence on her costume choice because I had a hard time brainwashing her into wanting to be Jesse...she may be getting too old and wise for my tricks!



Sometimes, I wonder how my kids feel about their homemade, glued together Halloween costumes. But I have fun putting them together, and I know they enjoyed wearing them. My mom used her seamstress skills to sew Emily's chaps and Ty's vest. I painted the squares on Ty's shirt and glued the embellishments on Emily's shirt. I also glued her chaps onto her jeans. It works!

Sewing Project

So I finally decided to conquer my fear of the machine that taunts me every time I walk in my laundry room. No, it is not the washer or dryer. I store my sewing machine in my laundry room. I've been wanting to learn to sew since I was pregnant with Ty, but I'm super-intimidated by it. I've had my MIL and mom "help" (and by help, I mean do most of the work) me with a few projects before. But this time, I actually did it myself!

My mom made me thread my machine a zillion times, so I would remember and could do it when she's gone! Wanna see what I made?



I made the dress and tie. My mom and I decided that the dress would be cute with a kerchief, so my mom took one that I bought Emily last summer, and she figured out how to make it. I left the house to go run and errand, and by the time I got back, she had almost finished it!



I put this next picture here just because Ty's expression is so funny and so...Ty.



My favorite part was when Emily was watching me sew her dress. She said, "Mom, I can't believe I'm actually watching you sew!" And the part where she twirled and danced around in the dress I made her was pretty cool, too.

So how does Ty feel about the tie? Well, he insisted on wearing it with his Goofy t-shirt this afternoon. And he threw quite the fit when Dee wouldn't let him wear it to Wal-Mart!

Have a great week, everyone!

Happy Birthday to Ty!

April 10, 2007--a picture of Emily and "Ty" in the bluebonnets.
Every day, I was asking myself "How am I going to make it to May?"



Sorry if it's tiny--this was the first day we had our new camera, and we must have had it set on small jpeg.

April 10, 2010--a picture of Emily and Ty in the bluebonnets.



Not only have the kids changed, but I also think Mom may have figured out those camera settings ;-)

April 12, 2007

Surprise! I didn't have to find out how I was going to make it until May!



Age 1--Sometime around April 12, 2008 (poor 2nd child).



Age 2--April 12, 2009 (Easter Sunday)



2 days before turning 3--April 10, 2010



Happy birthday, Ty! Mommy, Daddy, and Emily love you. We can't wait to celebrate with you later today :-)

Since the time you were a baby, I have always had this verse on my heart for you.

Joshua 1:9
Be strong and courageous. Do not be terrified; do not be discouraged, for the LORD your God will be with you wherever you go.

I can't wait to see you grow and change this year!

Funny Emily Follow-Up

We were on our way to dance, and I told Emily that we will go Easter dress shopping again after her class. She said, "We might not find a dress. So before you freak out, make sure you look at Target first."

If you don't get it, read yesterday's post. I love that girl!


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Funny Emily

Just in case you were wondering, Emily doesn't miss a beat. I took the kids shopping tonight to try to find Easter clothes. Yes, I know I'm pushing it, but we've been so busy, and I haven't loved anything I've seen online. So we were heading into the K-Town mall to go to Gap Kids/Baby Gap. Emily asked if we were going to eat at the mall, and I said it depends on whether or not we find Easter clothes at Gap.

Here's the rest of our conversation:

E: Why, mommy?

M: Because if we don't find anything here, we're going to go to Temple and look at Marshall's.

E: But what if we don't find anything there?

M: Then, we will go to Macy's. And if we don't find anything there...(I paused because I was trying to figure out what I would do in this scenario)

E: (filling in while I paused): You'll freak out!

Silly, silly girl. We struck out tonight, but tomorrow after dance class, we will try a few other stores, and hopefully, I won't be freaking out by then!